I Announced My Divorce on Facebook

The D-word. No one wants to say it. But if your marriage is ending, the day will come when you have to.

The first time I said the D-word was on a Saturday afternoon at a parade. My 6 year-old daughter, still in her leotard from dance class, played happily with a friend on the sidewalk while I found myself blurting out "I'm getting divorced" to an acquaintance.

The aftertaste of that word hit me like a tidal wave. I fell apart right there on the sidewalk as people walked past me, not knowing what hit me.

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That word, I decided, wasn't a word I felt like saying all the time. I figured it would get easier eventually, but I wasn't sure when that would be. I thought about how divorcing celebrities had it so much easier: they could just hire a publicist to tell everyone for them. Then they wouldn't have to deal with people asking questions like, "Are you guys going anywhere good for vacation this year?"

I didn't have it in me to explain again and again. I certainly couldn't pretend like nothing had changed. I have never had a good poker face.

So I decided to hire myself as my own publicist and simply tell the world – or my world, at least – via Facebook status. Nearly everyone my husband and I knew was on Facebook. I thought, one horribly awkward status update and I would be done.

I didn't have it in me to explain again and again. I certainly couldn't pretend like nothing had changed.

I got a babysitter, went to a private booth at Panera, and started typing. Twenty minutes later, I had a draft of the "press release" that would break the news.

There it all was: My name, my husband's name, and the D-word. I wanted to vomit.

I emailed my soon-to-be ex to let him know what I was about to do. He replied right away. I half-expected him to beg me not to post it. He was never the public type, so I figured this kind of blanket announcement was likely to have him jumping out of his skin.

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Instead, he wrote that he was devastated to see everything laid out in black and white, even though he had accepted that this is what we were doing.

We made some revisions together, mostly to address questions we figured people might have that we didn't feel like answering. For my part, I wanted people to know two things: That we had tried hard to fix our marriage, and that this was a final decision.

Our marriage trouble would be new news to many of our friends, but we had been circling the divorce block for a long time. I'd only recently "come out" to my closest friends, admitting to the multiple rounds of counseling over more than four years. I hadn't told them before because I wanted keep my unhappiness compartmentalized – tucked into the neat confines of one-hour therapy sessions.

But now, shouting it from the virtual rooftop would mean there would be no more compartmentalizing.

When we finished tinkering with our statement, I stared out the window for several minutes, breathing in the last few breaths before we let our world in on our private shame. Then I posted our very own pre-Gwyneth Paltrow statement on "conscious uncoupling."

Tom and I would like to jointly announce that we are getting divorced. (Yes, this is Trish writing but I promise you that this is not a joke and not an attempt to be snarky.) We realize that this probably comes as a shock to a lot of you and we apologize about that. We did not come to this decision lightly. We tried to "fix" our marriage in various ways, on our own and with the help of various professionals. Ultimately, what we are left with is a situation that makes neither of us happy.

We are amicable. We are working together to get through this. We are both hurting but we do not hate each other. We have decided to part at this time in order to maintain congeniality so that we can continue to raise our children together with love. We genuinely wish the best for each other going forward.

Tom isn't going to post this on his page because he has many clients as FB friends. We ask that if you are going to message him, please do so via private message instead of a wall post.

For those of you who have walked through this with us, you have our thanks and our love.

We emailed each other again, oddly enough, to commiserate over our divorce from each other. Now that everyone knew, there really would never be a way to go back to our former life. It was over. And since we didn't need to fight anymore, we said things like, "Let's stay a family, even though things are going to look different. Let's cheer each other on. Let's be kind and cooperative. Let's stay friends."

I was proud of us, but I also wondered if we were delusional.

As this was happening, the comments started coming in. There were a lot of sentiments similar to things people say when they hear about a death. "Our thoughts and prayers are with you." That seemed appropriate, actually. Our marriage had died, and we were grieving.

I also got many private messages from friends, telling me they loved me and that they were hurting for me. Some even admitted to their own marriage struggles.

Did he also get messages like that? I don't know. With this announcement, there was an obvious formal division. I no longer retained the right to ask about his communications.

Thankfully, no one begged us to continue to work on it.

I know that some people might say it's tacky to announce something so personal on social media. But at the time, I was a wreck. My house was a wreck. My whole existence was a wreck. Facebook was merciful in its efficiency.

That Facebook announcement had another benefit, too. Getting real and seeing that that people loved me anyway, despite the fact that my life wasn't filled with pretty social media moments. This, in a way, helped inspire me to continue speaking my truth. I ended up being very public on my divorce journey.

There's one more benefit to it all: My announcement inspired people to be real and honest with me as well. That has been one of the sweetest gifts I could ever receive, especially in a time of sadness.